2 Millimeter Temperature Sensor Powered By Radio Waves

This minuscule chip can measure the temperature wherever it’s placed—and it never needs a battery, because it’s powered by the radio waves from the same wireless network that it uses to communicate.The Internet of Things movement is chugging on at an unstoppable pace, but some of the hardware necessary for any real advancement isn’t quite there yet.

Some particularly compelling pieces, such as Amazon’s Echo when paired with IFTTT, may give the illusion that we’re already living in the world of tomorrow, but a student at the University of Technology Eindhoven begs to differ. Hao Gao, a PhD holder as of yesterday, has designed a temperature sensor that’s roughly the size of a grain of sand and will never need an external power source. The chip is able to work beneath a layer of paint, plaster or concrete, which hints at its intended use: the researchers reckon that the tiny devices could be embedded within buildings to keep an eye on conditions.

Thanks to very slight variations in frequency, the signal that the sensor sends at this point can be deciphered by the router to obtain temperature data. This low power sensor is only the first of a new breed of tiny, practically self-powered tech that will start with small aspirations, but could perceivably evolve into all manner of small chips, from mobile routers to light sensors.

On the mobile spectrum, this could mean your future smartphone can be designed with even more freedom than now and could use a much smaller measure of power. Taken to its logical extreme, it’s not a stretch to imagine near-microscopic processors and wireless chips sharing their self-gathered power pool, leaving your smartphone to not drain at all, or perhaps even charge, when left alone with the screen off.